This should be enough to ban cleats in High School

[ssarge]

If I'm following your logic (and I may not be). If your disdain of girls lax and field hockey players wearing skorts lies in your disdain for treating girls and boys differently...how do you feel about girls wearing SHORTS in softball? Clearly, NO boys wear shorts in baseball! Has Kelly ever worn shorts as a part of her softball uniform? How about sliders? Is the Univ. of Texas a sexist institution because they wear shorts in softball but pants in baseball.

Keith:

I can't believe my opinion of women's fashion is of interest to anyone - including ME, but since you asked:

I think shorts in softball are hideous. An absolute abomination. The baggy ones worn by the US National Team just look horrific. Tighter ones look worse. Anyone who watched Monica Abbott from the CF camera through hundreds of pitches during the WCWS last year would HAVE to agree with me.

Our 18Gold team doesn't even purchase shorts anymore. We have several jersey / pants combos. Same with our high school team. I think we HAVE shorts, and my daughter seems to occasionally wear them to practice. But we never wear them in games, and I am certain that if she had her choice, she would always opt for pants. Which she wears much too tight, but I digress.

I am sorry to say that DD's college team - she starts this Fall - still sometimes wears shorts. NOT looking forard to that one aspect of her college play.

Beside the fact that (IMO) pants help makes girls look more like ballplayers - which I think I have demonstrated is important to me - I am now spared the horrific experience of smelling my daughter's knee pads on a Sunday night drive home to NorCal from Orange County. After a long, hot weekend, that is an experience I would refer to as an SUV Excursion to Hell. The only thing that could possibly make this worse is when we have a couple of her teammates - similarly well sweated - traveling with us. If there is an odor in the known universe that is more objectionable than sweated-in softball knee pads, I hope never to encounter it.

My DD plays volleyball as well...what do you think of those uniforms?

I would confess to having a certain affinity for the uniforms in beach volleyball.

Regards,

Scott

[ssarge]

Allow me to clarify one more thing....UCS is interesting to absolutely no body who has ever looked at it....the most boring board.....UCS put the bore in board.

Hasn't stopped entertaining and opinionated guys like Emtae from making several hundred posts.

[Martin]

I never understood the argument for wearing shorts. It's utter madness, IMHO. The girls play on dirt, not all of it groomed to NCAA D1 standards. Talk about the almost complete certainty of incurring injury!

I'll grant you even the most impressive raspberry doesn't equal 27 stiches, but they occur at extremely high rates - enough to give serious pause for one who is interested in properly filling out a cocktail dress, I would think.

At a minimum I would think the catchers would rise up in rebellion, but clearly the demands of fashion outweigh common sense.

[wadeintothem]

I never did understand the shorts thing either.. I just chopped it up to "its a girl thing".

[Sam]

Allow me to clarify one more thing....UCS is interesting to absolutely no body who has ever looked at it....the most boring board.....UCS put the bore in board.

Hasn't stopped entertaining and opinionated guys like Emtae from making several hundred posts.

Nobody ever said that Emtae had any brains.....except Emtae...

[greenandblue]

- IMO, and my memory of the cost over the years, molded plastic cleats wear out much much faster than metal spikes.

- Is there a post that shows the injuries on baseball/softball fields that are caused by molded/plastic cleats??? No, but there should be because - for the last 15 years of
LL, baseball/softball/travel ball and high school in our family, we have seen several horrible sprains, tears and breaks, ALL CAUSED BY MOLDED PLASTIC CLEATS!!!!!!!!! You can not say that one type of cleat is worse than another and that a player would not have been hurt if they hadn't been wearing metal cleats. If they give a player an advantage, they should be able to wear them no matter what sex they are!

- I would be more worried, (much more worried) about the advancing technology of bats. The chance of a fatal injury from a super duper XYZ composite/kryptonite bat is much higher to more players than a shin getting cut by metal spikes. And we all know that many parents are itching to buy the latest and greatest bats to make their DD's the superstar.

And on the subject of uniform shorts,............ you couldn't pay me to slide in shorts, and I would like to see the coaches that insist on uniform shorts slide in shorts. Sliders don't do diddly to stop the raspberries.

And, I am soooo tired of being out and about on tournament weekends and a person will ask my daughter.........oh, do you play soccer???????

[Tucson]

Shorts are a girl thing. I spent at least 15 years playing the sport in shorts and metal cleats We didn't have pads or sliders.
We had to learn to slide on that fat part of our upper thigh. We couldn't go into the bag sliding on our leg from ankle to thigh. Yes, strawberries occurred, but it meant something was wrong with our slide.

You couldn't have paid us to wear men's pants.

So, 35 years later DD was pretty far along in her career and still wearing shorts. More teams started wearing pants. Female pants were created. Generally, we can't wear baseball pants. DD liked pants. I liked shorts. The girls finally convinced me that they liked pants. OK - since I'm not the one wearing them, pants are OK.

The times, they are a changin'. Amy

[americanfreedom]

- Is there a post that shows the injuries on baseball/softball fields that are caused by molded/plastic cleats??? No, but there should be because - for the last 15 years of LL, baseball/softball/travel ball and high school in our family, we have seen several horrible sprains, tears and breaks, ALL CAUSED BY MOLDED PLASTIC CLEATS!!!!!!!!! You can not say that one type of cleat is worse than another and that a player would not have been hurt if they hadn't been wearing metal cleats. If they give a player an advantage, they should be able to wear them no matter what sex they are!

This post seems to have run its course, but this is exactly the point: There are no studies one way or the other (and I have looked) . . . the only study that I'm aware of was a 2006 Center for Disease Control study that concluded the overall rate of injury in softball was no different than baseball (I'm looking for the study itself because my internet bookmark to it is no longer valid).

This suggests there is no difference in the number of horrible sprains, tears, breaks, etc. between wearing rubber than metal spikes since the girls in 2006 mostly all wore rubber and the boys wore metal. It also could suggest that there is no greater difference in the number of injuries caused by metal . . . but then of course, we don't know that because metal has never before been introduced into softball where the game is faster, the bases are closer, etc. (the boys have NEVER worn metal when playing 60' bases)

In short, my experience is consistent with the CDC study: there is no difference in the number of groin pulls, tears, sprains, etc when wearing rubber. The conclusion that such injuries were "caused" by rubber is an unsupported assumption in the absence of the player wearing metal. You don't have to assume, however, that a sliced leg is caused by metal and would not have occurred if the player had been wearing rubber cleats (the hard plastic, screw-in plastic cleat by Mizuno is just as dangerous as metal).

Finally, this assumption that metal is superior is further offset by the absence of metal in in any number of sports such as soccer, field hockey, rugby, and football. I don't see statistically relevant numbers of horrible sprains, tears, and breaks in these sports caused by "slipping" on grass that might have been avoided had the player been wearing metal (which of course they can't do because of the nature of the sport). Moreover, in the majority of these sports, I see a HUGE increase in the number of players who do "slip" regularly without injury. Perhaps the reason that you see these sprains, tears, and breaks in softball/baseball (especially beer league softball) is that softball/baseball players traditionally have not engaged in the pre-game and practice stretching regimes that these other sports have enforced for years. Just food for thought.

[Tucson]

"but then of course, we don't know that because metal has never before been introduced into softball where the game is faster, the bases are closer, etc."

No, that is incorrect. We wore metal from ASA's inception in 1934 through 1980.

I agree that more stretching is good for the players.

I go to MLB Spring training and some of those guys are laying in the OF, prior to the game having a trainer stretch them out.

[americanfreedom]

" No, that is incorrect. We wore metal from ASA's inception in 1934 through 1980.

Do you know the age limitations on use of metal in ASA play use prior to 1980? Was this in 18u and below? If ASA allowed metal use by girls in 18u and below prior to 1980, what led to the original ban? I've looked for this historical information and can't find it on the 'net.